M15: Hunter Ranger Class Changes

Hunter Ranger has had some adjustments in the past and, while they are in a fairly good state, there are still some improvements that we wanted to make. In this update, we primarily focused on creating a more viable Archery build as well as some minor buffs to encounter powers that we expect to be used in that build.

We also focused on the buffs that are applied through the various animal-based powers, such as Boar Hide and Stag Heart. A lot of these buffs were lackluster, unclear in what they did, and scaled in a weird way with power ranks. All of these things have been addressed and a new class feature has replaced Battlehoned that will hopefully allow these to see more use. We actually did tune down Hawkeye a bit because even though we want these to be used more, we want them to be more utility focused instead of damage focused.

Aspect of the Serpent is something that we’re experimenting with as well. It stacking up to 3 times adds a couple of different gameplay elements. It means that the first stack consumed makes your attack hit very hard and it means that you can do all 3 encounters and then 1 at-will rotation and have your full stacks back. We are hoping that this gives trapper a slight damage boost as well as other builds that switch stances often.

Finally, we wanted to touch up some class features in Pathfinder as most of them weren’t being used, or were being used in very specific situations. Two of them have been slightly revamped so that they can be stronger in end-game content, but probably won’t end up replacing your heavy hitting features. The other will increase the effectiveness of your animal-based buffs and should offer a more unique build to help your team.

Actually, we were able to get one more fix in and that would be for the shift power. We saw that it was consistently breaking when trying to dodge things so we adjusted the immunity frames to start more near the beginning of the animation.

Baseline:

Shift: There should no longer be a delay before the “Dodge” effect kicks in

Oak Skin (Revamped): Enhances yourself, as well as nearby allies, with “Oaken Skin” for 9 seconds. “Oaken Skin” heals you for 9% of your maximum hit points over its duration and increases your incoming healing by 10% while active.

Archery:

Stillness of the Forest (Reworked): Now increases your damage dealt and crit chance by 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5% for each second that you stand still, stacking up to 6 times. You will lose 1 stack per second while moving. Stacks are not lost while out of combat.

Predator (Reworked): Using a ranged encounter power applies "Prey" to the first target hit for 10 seconds. You deal 20% increased damage to the first target hit by your powers and this bonus is doubled for targets affected by Prey. Prey may only be active on one target at a time and cannot be reapplied until it expires.

Predator: Now correctly increases the damage you deal to an enemy (Rather than decrease the enemy's damage resistance for your attacks)

Comments

The reason Archers struggle in the game usually comes down to the simple fact that their powers, combined with the buff from "Stillness of the Forest" keep them far enough from the action in a dungeon that they are effectively out of range of the party buffs. In fact, they are often so far our that their companions fail to engage and trigger their bonding stones ....

None of these changes are really going to change that and turn the archer into a viable choice.

Low mobility + Long cast-time encounter + Damage-over-time encounter + Low damage = low overall damage. This an extremely poor ability set synergy. Not only that, these long-cast encounters are interruptible! If you happened to be interrupted and what, 2/3 of mobs have interrupt(?) your dps is zero for that time.

By the time an Archer is within striking distance, we cast RainOfArrow/SplitTheSky, the mobs are already dead.

- Archery Movement speed should be increased significantly for PvE for alpha strike due to our long-cast/damage over-time/low-damage encounters (just adjust speed for PvP, so it's not overpowered). It really feels like we have low base movement, as if we move 1/2 slower than every other class. Could you check (both female/male) archers.- Rain of Arrow / Split the Sky should be insta-cast for Archery Tree Feat. Just tack it in one of the feats as an inclusion. Lowbase mobility + Long-cast+DOT AOE + Low Damage + Interruptible = extremely bad combo synergy for archery.

It seems one of our ranged synergy problem (Stillness of the Forest) has been partially addressed (tyvm) so I'm going to leave the rest for the future.

But just to be clear, there's still an issue with other synergies. If Archers opt for long-ranged build, Aspect of Falcon + Aspect of Falcon off-weapon feat, Our companion can't attack. I've mentioned it before many times, it's a catch-22. Perhaps that's something to think for / explore in Mod16.

Also, the tooltip/decription for Prey capstone is garbled/unintelligible. Please clarify. It talks about "doubling for targets" but it's only suppose to apply 20% damage to a single target? Does this mean multi-stacking with other Prey users?

Lastly, the Bottomless Quiver seem like a great buff.

PS, Marauder's Escape is essential for Archery please don't rework it in the future. Mobility is very important to Archery.

We are hoping that this gives trapper a slight damage boost as well as other builds that switch stances often.

If you wanted to buff Trapper,

why does Thorned Roots not scale with certain buffs, such as the Soul Sight Crystal or the Ranged/Melee Hunt gear (doesn't matter which scales it/doesnt scale it, the fact that neither do puts Trapper at a disadvantage)?

"Aspect of the Serpent is something that we’re experimenting with as well. It stacking up to 3 times adds a couple of different gameplay elements. It means that the first stack consumed makes your attack hit very hard and it means that you can do all 3 encounters and then 1 at-will rotation and have your full stacks back."

Does this mean that, for example, if I start the fight with 3 Ranged stacks, as I fire off my ranged powers that are consuming the Ranged Serpent stacks that I will be building Melee Serpent stacks at the same time so when I finish my ranged rotation (4 ranged powers), I will be at 3 Melee Serpent stacks and ready to swap to melee?

(also posted in bug report thread, please keep one if both are redundant)

The tooltip of Prey is still unclear. It says after using ranged encounter power, Prey is applied, which will increase damage by 20%, and the bonus is then 'doubled' for Targets affected by Prey. This separation of damage buff is confusing, are we getting a 40% damage buff here? Is the first hit AFTER Prey is applied is what's hitting for 20% and then subsequently getting doubled?

Regardless, testing shows that the damage buff is about 16.8% , not 20% and nowhere close to 40%.

Some update on this would be much appreciated since revamping Archery is of paramount interest in the HR community and this is the first step towards that tree.

Yea I meant Careful Attack has been broken at least 6-9 months! Very wise and great point firesidekitty! I mean who doesn't love a cat even when they laugh at you. My goodness I remember I respected from Stormwarden to Pathfinder cause someone recommended I do so for my Trapper, then no more than 1-3 weeks later it was broken and mostly stopped working? I waited almost 5-8 months then gave up switching back a month or so ago to Stormwarden.

I even specifically asked about that in a message to one of the DEVS just recently. Perhaps that is something they will address in the near future?

Bug (?): Stillness of the Forest does not display Crit chance in the character sheet (the damage buff is correctly calculated).

In terms of testing: my Crit chance "seemed" to be higher with 6x stacks of stillness, ACT showed my Crit chance on just at-wills as 20% excluding Longshot. Whether or not it is an "accurate" test I leave you to decide, I am way too lazy to run a null hypothesis test

Feedback:

Please change the tooltip for Quarry to say "decreases enemy damage resistance by 1/2/3/4/5%" rather than "increases damage by 1/2/3/4/5%".

(Or, alternatively: change Quarry INTO a 5% damage buff).

While the later tooltip is not necessarily incorrect, it is not precise. The wording will confuse people into thinking that Quarry is a damage buff, where, in reality, Quarry is a 5% damage increasing debuff.

Yea I meant Careful Attack has been broken at least 6-9 months! Very wise and great point firesidekitty! I mean who doesn't love a cat even when they laugh at you. My goodness I remember I respected from Stormwarden to Pathfinder cause someone recommended I do so for my Trapper, then no more than 1-3 weeks later it was broken and mostly stopped working? I waited almost 5-8 months then gave up switching back a month or so ago to Stormwarden.

I even specifically asked about that in a message to one of the DEVS just recently. Perhaps that is something they will address in the near future?

lol aww

but seriously. I do miss playing trapper. if they fixed careful attack it would be nice to go back to. then even if our dps isn't the highest in the game anymore we're good to have around as buff bots that deal respectable damage. Combat is boring. it's a poor mans gwf lol. archery might be fun to play with if they could get pets work with it and somehow balance the fact that archers don't get buffs. with out that consideration in the mix I just don't see how it will ever be relevant.

Archery were always viable. Archers were just built for PvP, not PvE. You guys tried to make Archery more viable in PvE by basing Stillness of the Forest on mobility rather than distance.

The problem is...

- Archery still requires range to get full self buffs. Aspect of the Falcon and Hunting Hawk, for example, still need max range. This change breaks synergy with these other features. It also doesn't make sense from a flavor perspective: Archers should be at range, not standing at melee distance.

- It's a huge nerf to PvP Archers that have to move fast and move often or they get killed. In PvP you gotta move constantly to cap and rotate; standing still to building stacks just ain't gonna happen. 25% Crit and increased dmg at distance used to allow Archers to slip in and get off 1 rotation at range with full buffs before melee players could close the gap. Now we get 1 unbuffed rotation, losing 25% Crit and 10% dmg. That's a huge loss.

It would've been better to make Stillness of the Forest a flat Crit/dmg buff that doesn't have any conditions attached to it.

Archery were always viable. Archers were just built for PvP, not PvE. You guys tried to make Archery more viable in PvE by basing Stillness of the Forest on mobility rather than distance.

The problem is...

- Archery still requires range to get full self buffs. Aspect of the Falcon and Hunting Hawk, for example, still need max range. This change breaks synergy with these other features. It also doesn't make sense from a flavor perspective: Archers should be at range, not standing at melee distance.

- It's a huge nerf to PvP Archers that have to move fast and move often or they get killed. In PvP you gotta move constantly to cap and rotate; standing still to building stacks just ain't gonna happen. 25% Crit and increased dmg at distance used to allow Archers to slip in and get off 1 rotation at range with full buffs before melee players could close the gap. Now we get 1 unbuffed rotation, losing 25% Crit and 10% dmg. That's a huge loss.

It would've been better to make Stillness of the Forest a flat Crit/dmg buff that doesn't have any conditions attached to it.

Not to mention the fact you have to be out of range of ALL team buffs as well, which makes it even worse on you as an HR. They should add a passive which automatically gives you all buffs players in your team use. Like an Aura which gives the HR all buffs players use in your team if they are in a 30' radius range from you or something similar because as it is, it makes Range even more pointless.

I see that you guys are trying to bring HRs to the table of filling support role: new Hawkeye and Boar Hide/Oak Skin. I still don't see HR being a viable support but maybe testing this on preview will show the opposite.

Looks like Bladestorm got a serious buff which will be used by combat spec heavily. I wonder how new AotS will perform with trapper rotation.

Overall, nice to see some changes to archery - it will be a great pvp build. Not fixing CA bug hurts Pathfinder heavily guys. You said you wanted to bring more life to this Path, just fix the damn power and people will be happy. Seriously.

You talked above as if the change to Aspect of serpent is supposed to be a buff to trappers and builds who changes stances often - however nature of this change is a lot different. First, to use serpent to its maximum potential both stances must be used effectively which means you must boost stacks to maximum in both stances before switching - which before was doable with 5 hits - 2 buffed ones from 1 stance, 1 neutral and 2 again to build stacks for other stance. What you essentially did here is prolong that rotation to 7 hits, which reduces switch speed and in already fast paced gameplay costs us the damage over time - 7 hits in one stance is not only 3 encounters you have - being mandatory to use each of them even that is not the reality of trapper gameplay to begin with since you have to skip some abilities in certain scenarios, but now you also have to spam at wills for longer to get full stacks (4 times) - and all of this for a buff that is not even that much more significant compared how the old one was. If you really want to buff it you should consider making 2nd encounter hit automatically build up all stacks for other stance while reducing damage buff per stack.

You talked above as if the change to Aspect of serpent is supposed to be a buff to trappers and builds who changes stances often - however nature of this change is a lot different. First, to use serpent to its maximum potential both stances must be used effectively which means you must boost stacks to maximum in both stances before switching - which before was doable with 5 hits - 2 buffed ones from 1 stance, 1 neutral and 2 again to build stacks for other stance. What you essentially did here is prolong that rotation to 7 hits, which reduces switch speed and in already fast paced gameplay costs us the damage over time - 7 hits in one stance is not only 3 encounters you have - being mandatory to use each of them even that is not the reality of trapper gameplay to begin with since you have to skip some abilities in certain scenarios, but now you also have to spam at wills for longer to get full stacks (4 times) - and all of this for a buff that is not even that much more significant compared how the old one was. If you really want to buff it you should consider making 2nd encounter hit automatically build up all stacks for other stance while reducing damage buff per stack.

Basically this. I checked on preview and squeezing your rotation during Longstrider buff window is very hard now. This may ruin trapper running with LSS which is a great utility/dps playstyle. I already see that people will run trapper only with Constricting - COA - Hindering, since they will be the fastest to build AotS stacks.

Or people will return to trapper Stormwarden and use Blade Storm instead of AotS. Either way, this change is disturbing our current playstyle with LSS where we were building up stacks, proccing Master Trapper and squeezing massive damage dunk with PG.

You talked above as if the change to Aspect of serpent is supposed to be a buff to trappers and builds who changes stances often - however nature of this change is a lot different. First, to use serpent to its maximum potential both stances must be used effectively which means you must boost stacks to maximum in both stances before switching - which before was doable with 5 hits - 2 buffed ones from 1 stance, 1 neutral and 2 again to build stacks for other stance. What you essentially did here is prolong that rotation to 7 hits, which reduces switch speed and in already fast paced gameplay costs us the damage over time - 7 hits in one stance is not only 3 encounters you have - being mandatory to use each of them even that is not the reality of trapper gameplay to begin with since you have to skip some abilities in certain scenarios, but now you also have to spam at wills for longer to get full stacks (4 times) - and all of this for a buff that is not even that much more significant compared how the old one was. If you really want to buff it you should consider making 2nd encounter hit automatically build up all stacks for other stance while reducing damage buff per stack.

Basically this. I checked on preview and squeezing your rotation during Longstrider buff window is very hard now. This may ruin trapper running with LSS which is a great utility/dps playstyle. I already see that people will run trapper only with Constricting - COA - Hindering, since they will be the fastest to build AotS stacks.

Or people will return to trapper Stormwarden and Blade Storm instead of AotS. Either way, this change is disturbing our current playstyle with LSS where we were building up stacks, proccing Master Trapper and squeezing massive damage dunk with PG.

Now Trapper is absolute useless. But yeah...we get a new Archer build...okay, it doesn't really work too. But we still have the Combat feat. So let's throw away our bows and caution and call us GWF-wannabe.

@balanced#2849 I'm really looking forward to trying this out, especially for Archery. I play all three HR paths, but Archery has been a fun side project for me, including a build I created as a work around solution to the archery dilemma:

If your changes do make archery more viable and perhaps make my build obsolete, I'll be happy to respec. I really mean that. It seems like you've addressed the #1 issue I was seeing - that Stillness of the Forest requires being far away (from party buffs) in order to get the maximum benefit from that feat. It is now enough to just be in a ranged stance.

I see potential here for Archery to become an incredible party buffer and secondary DPS. This was the cornerstone of my build but your changes could bring out all of these qualities from a pure build.

But I am a little bit concerned that there may not be quite enough of a damage boost for archers. DPS has been a problem. Perhaps the changes to Stillness of the Forest and Prey will help more than I think. My build relies on Skirmisher's Gambit to achieve more damage. Perhaps a change as well to Rising Power to add a little more Crit Severity?

Primal Instincts appears to be Pathfinder only, which means in order to get that passive, Archers would have to forgo Split the Sky, which is a major source of AoE damage. If you could just increase (even just a little) the AoE size of Rain of Arrows (which is currently very small), that would be nice. Stormwarden would still exclusively have Split the Sky and Electric Shot, for those who prefer that path.

I'm also a little concerned about what constitutes standing still. I would hope that changing into melee stance would not trigger a loss of stacks from stillness and that these stacks would persist during the melee stance. I'd like to be able use some occasional melee powers too, not unlike how Combat HRs can use occasional ranged powers.

Also, I don't think "Stillness" of the Forest was ever meant to be about the HR being still physically. I think it has always been in reference to achieving internal stillness or calm. When you consider that historically archers could even ride a horse and fire with great precision - for example the legendary Mongol and Native American archers - the idea that an archer has to stand still is not entirely true. They can move, but they just have to maintain poise. How that translates into the game... I'd just like to be able to stance change and reposition as needed. Some bosses do move around. In some Barovia hunts, the boss teleports all over the place.

Hunter Ranger has had some adjustments in the past and, while they are in a fairly good state, there are still some improvements that we wanted to make. In this update, we primarily focused on creating a more viable Archery build as well as some minor buffs to encounter powers that we expect to be used in that build.

We also focused on the buffs that are applied through the various animal-based powers, such as Boar Hide and Stag Heart. A lot of these buffs were lackluster, unclear in what they did, and scaled in a weird way with power ranks. All of these things have been addressed and a new class feature has replaced Battlehoned that will hopefully allow these to see more use. We actually did tune down Hawkeye a bit because even though we want these to be used more, we want them to be more utility focused instead of damage focused.

Aspect of the Serpent is something that we’re experimenting with as well. It stacking up to 3 times adds a couple of different gameplay elements. It means that the first stack consumed makes your attack hit very hard and it means that you can do all 3 encounters and then 1 at-will rotation and have your full stacks back. We are hoping that this gives trapper a slight damage boost as well as other builds that switch stances often.

Finally, we wanted to touch up some class features in Pathfinder as most of them weren’t being used, or were being used in very specific situations. Two of them have been slightly revamped so that they can be stronger in end-game content, but probably won’t end up replacing your heavy hitting features. The other will increase the effectiveness of your animal-based buffs and should offer a more unique build to help your team.

Actually, we were able to get one more fix in and that would be for the shift power. We saw that it was consistently breaking when trying to dodge things so we adjusted the immunity frames to start more near the beginning of the animation.

Baseline:

Shift: There should no longer be a delay before the “Dodge” effect kicks in

Oak Skin (Revamped): Enhances yourself, as well as nearby allies, with “Oaken Skin” for 9 seconds. “Oaken Skin” heals you for 9% of your maximum hit points over its duration and increases your incoming healing by 10% while active.

Archery:

Stillness of the Forest (Reworked): Now increases your damage dealt and crit chance by 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5% for each second that you stand still, stacking up to 6 times. You will lose 1 stack per second while moving. Stacks are not lost while out of combat.

Predator (Reworked): Using a ranged encounter power applies "Prey" to the first target hit for 10 seconds. You deal 20% increased damage to the first target hit by your powers and this bonus is doubled for targets affected by Prey. Prey may only be active on one target at a time and cannot be reapplied until it expires.

Predator: Now correctly increases the damage you deal to an enemy (Rather than decrease the enemy's damage resistance for your attacks)

Predator: This feat is no longer half as effective on players

Trapper:

Ok I dont think you guys even play your own game now... How on Earth do you think if you have 3 stacks of Ranged Aspect of the Serpent, you use 3 Encounters and 1 At-Will to have your stacks back?That exact scenario would leave you at Neutral stacks or just 1 stack of the opposite AotS.

This would then leave you at 3 stacks of the opposite in order to switch... that is just too many attacks to make a Trapper any use and you obliterate Longstrider builds.

Then dont forget that Buff Powers were changed a while back so they dont even use a stack of Aspect of the Serpent up... so builds with 1 or 2 buffs are going to lose so much DPS by having to add in even more low attack damage hits just to gain stacks. All of which is time consuming and that is something the Trapper does not have in order to be effective.

Stillness of the forest buff randomly dissapears while you attack certain targets - no relation to any specific rotation or ability (dissapears even if you just spam aimed shot or hunters teamwork on dummy). After its gone it starts to build itself over from 0 stacks.

Hunter Ranger has had some adjustments in the past and, while they are in a fairly good state, there are still some improvements that we wanted to make. In this update, we primarily focused on creating a more viable Archery build as well as some minor buffs to encounter powers that we expect to be used in that build.

We also focused on the buffs that are applied through the various animal-based powers, such as Boar Hide and Stag Heart. A lot of these buffs were lackluster, unclear in what they did, and scaled in a weird way with power ranks. All of these things have been addressed and a new class feature has replaced Battlehoned that will hopefully allow these to see more use. We actually did tune down Hawkeye a bit because even though we want these to be used more, we want them to be more utility focused instead of damage focused.

Aspect of the Serpent is something that we’re experimenting with as well. It stacking up to 3 times adds a couple of different gameplay elements. It means that the first stack consumed makes your attack hit very hard and it means that you can do all 3 encounters and then 1 at-will rotation and have your full stacks back. We are hoping that this gives trapper a slight damage boost as well as other builds that switch stances often.

Finally, we wanted to touch up some class features in Pathfinder as most of them weren’t being used, or were being used in very specific situations. Two of them have been slightly revamped so that they can be stronger in end-game content, but probably won’t end up replacing your heavy hitting features. The other will increase the effectiveness of your animal-based buffs and should offer a more unique build to help your team.

Actually, we were able to get one more fix in and that would be for the shift power. We saw that it was consistently breaking when trying to dodge things so we adjusted the immunity frames to start more near the beginning of the animation.

Baseline:

Shift: There should no longer be a delay before the “Dodge” effect kicks in

Oak Skin (Revamped): Enhances yourself, as well as nearby allies, with “Oaken Skin” for 9 seconds. “Oaken Skin” heals you for 9% of your maximum hit points over its duration and increases your incoming healing by 10% while active.

Archery:

Stillness of the Forest (Reworked): Now increases your damage dealt and crit chance by 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5% for each second that you stand still, stacking up to 6 times. You will lose 1 stack per second while moving. Stacks are not lost while out of combat.

Predator (Reworked): Using a ranged encounter power applies "Prey" to the first target hit for 10 seconds. You deal 20% increased damage to the first target hit by your powers and this bonus is doubled for targets affected by Prey. Prey may only be active on one target at a time and cannot be reapplied until it expires.

Predator: Now correctly increases the damage you deal to an enemy (Rather than decrease the enemy's damage resistance for your attacks)

Predator: This feat is no longer half as effective on players

Trapper:

Ok I dont think you guys even play your own game now... How on Earth do you think if you have 3 stacks of Ranged Aspect of the Serpent, you use 3 Encounters and 1 At-Will to have your stacks back?That exact scenario would leave you at Neutral stacks or just 1 stack of the opposite AotS.

This would then leave you at 3 stacks of the opposite in order to switch... that is just too many attacks to make a Trapper any use and you obliterate Longstrider builds.

Then dont forget that Buff Powers were changed a while back so they dont even use a stack of Aspect of the Serpent up... so builds with 1 or 2 buffs are going to lose so much DPS by having to add in even more low attack damage hits just to gain stacks. All of which is time consuming and that is something the Trapper does not have in order to be effective.

I just messed with it on preview. I"m out of practice as a trapper but doing your three encounters and then a couple at wills fills it pretty much instantly using rapid strike. using ca not so much. Considering we need CA to be a viable endgame path (and it's broken) and it takes forever to fill stacks.. yeah not so hot. easy to get stacks in ranged. but going into melee, you might get one stack going into ranged with CA if you were trying to remain quick about it.

I still fail to see the point of playing archer as a range class in this game. All the best buff are still happening in melee range. So u still want archer to stand at 10ft from the party? U might just make archery a melee class. Anyway, nice changes on pathfinder paragon.

I’m not trying be a HAMSTER, but I did say “point blank”. Meaning I’m not far away. I’m basically umm point blank away from mobs. Lol. I do use seekers vengeance so I would typically be right behind a boss.